Maria Cadenzavna Eve (マリア・カデンツァヴナ・イヴ,Maria Kadenzavuna Ivu?) is one six main characters of the Senki Zesshō Symphogear series. Introduced as an antagonist, Maria later becomes one of the six protagonists of the series.

Throughout most of Symphogear G, Maria claims to be the newest reincarnation of Finé after Ryōko Sakurai's demise. This ruse is eventually dropped, leading to confusion about the real identity of Finé's new host as it is implied to be Kirika Akatsuki until G Episode 12 reveals it to be Shirabe Tsukuyomi.

Contents

Etymology

Maria (マリア,Maria?) - Means the beautiful in Greek and comes from Miriam and Mirjam and the name from Jesus' mom: the virgin Maria.

Cadenzavna (カデンツァヴナ,Cadenzavna?) - is a family name which implements Polish grammar, in which female names end in "a" (example: Kowalska, Składowska) and male in "i" (example: Kowalski, Składowski). This comes from the Italian word Cadenza which is a form of music that is usually played or sung solo.

Eve (イヴ,Eve?) - English name originating from Hebrew, meaning "life" or "living one". It is most famously known as the name of the Biblical Eve, the first woman and sinner who caused humanity to be expelled from the Garden of Eden.

Appearance

Maria has long, coral hair with the top styled up in two horn-like curls, with a blue flower accessory centered into each curl. The rest of her hair hangs loose down to her hips. Her eyes are blue-green. Maria is most often seen wearing a white corset-like top under a blue jacket with feathered ends, a wide open collar, and white accents secured with a bow under her chest. She also wears white short-shorts, a stocking on her left leg and dark laced up boots.

Her first stage dress is pink, green and blue while her second one is white, light blue and blue-yellow high shoes.

When she was younger, she wore a blue dress with black tights and pink ribbon near her stomach. At that time, her hair was shorter, falling just past her shoulders.

Personality

Maria is an energetic idol and a bit mysterious. She's gradually revealed to have a conflicted heart, torn between her determination to complete her mission and her unwillingness to cause others harm. While she will gladly make harsh speeches and fight other Gear users, she cannot bring herself to harm normal people unless absolutely enraged. This conflicted nature makes her easily manipulated and vulnerable at times, but at heart Maria is just a kind and sincere girl who simply wants to help and protect everyone she holds dear.

History

Maria and Serena were originally born in an unkown town in the Ukraine. They were constantly put at risk by the flames of war fanned by territorial and ethnic disputes in the region. Eventually, Maria and Serena lost their home and family in the wars and became vagrants, wandering aimlessly and huddling together to stay alive. Sometime later, they ended up in the White Orphanage as part of the Receptor Children project.

Six years prior to Symphogear G, Maria watched Serena sacrifice herself in order to defeat the monster Nephilim by using her Superb Song. It was during this time that Professor Nastassja had lost the ability to walk as her legs were trapped under debris caused by the energy whiplash when she attempted to save Maria.

Years later, after the death of Ryōko Sakurai during season 1, the FIS attempted to determine if Finé had revived in any of the Receptor Children, but were unable to do so. They then planned to dispose of the project, but due to an armed uprising led by Nastassja — with the help of funding provided by the Bavarian Illuminati — the existence of the confined Receptor Children was brought to light. In fear of criticism from the international community, the US government quickly changed their tune and arranged for the children to be released of their own will or provided shelter. At this point, Maria, Shirabe, and Kirika joined with Nastassja and Dr. Ver in order to stop the fall of the Moon.

Sometime before Symphogear G, Maria made her debut as an idol and quickly rose to the top ranks in the US, eventually leading her to be arranged to duet with the top idol of Japan, Tsubasa, leading to the disastrous concert that would be used to awaken the Nephilim.

Attacks & Abilities

Holy Chants

Transformations

Abilities

As a candidate for the Symphogear, she has the ability to fight Noise with the use of the anti-Noise armour that clads her in battle. However, she requires LiNKER to do so.

Maria has used two Symphogears during her tenure, the first being the second Gungnir which is now in use by Hibiki. While Maria wears it, it becomes known as Black Gungnir due to its distinctive dark color palette, and reverts to the relic's original emphasis on fighting with an enormous two-handed lance. Maria's lance is somewhat different in design than Kanade's, featuring two distinct blades in a Philips head arrangement. During Symphogear G, Black Gungnir featured a cape which Maria could control to animate and change shape, using it as her primary form of offense and defense instead of her lance, but in GX Black Gungnir had lost its cape.

While wielding Airgetlám, Maria's fighting style dramatically changes to emphasize the use of knives and whip-swords, producing a more exotic variant on Tsubasa's fighting style.

Attacks

HORIZON†SPEAR - Both blades of Maria's lance split open to expand the lance into a large energy cannon, which after a short charging time unleashes a purple energy beam.

Vitalization - A six-member combination attack accessible only in X-Drive, which forms a pair of large arms out of Gungnir and Airgetlám's armor components that deliver a combined punch fueled by the energy of all six Symphogears.

INFINITE†CRIME - Similar to Kanade's Stardust∞Foton, she summons multiple copies of her Armed Gear and launches them at her enemies.

EMPRESS†REBELLION - Converting her Armed Gear into a whip-sword, she slashes through all of the enemies around her.

SERE†NADE - Attaching her Armed Gear to the elbow of the gauntlet on her left arm, she charges at the enemy and slashes through them. When the Ignite Module is active, this attack is powerful enough to defeat an Autoscorer.

REJECTION†DARKNESS - Maria sings her Superb Song, before take jump and use her Armed Gear to wrap herself, becoming a giant drill, crashing on her target.

DESPAIR†BREAK - With her X-Drive, Maria take an offensive stance while holding her Armed Gear with her two hands, before rushing towards her targets, piercing them from several angles while leaving white feathers in her path, then with a final attack, her targets are caught in an explosion.

NEMESIS†HAMMER - Maria summons replicas of her Armed Gear, taking in a circle formation in the air before charging energy at the center, Maria then jump to connect the energy sphere at the tip of her Armed Gear, before throwing it, creating a beam rushing toward her target.

NOBLE†TEAR - Maria raises her Armed Gear into the air, summoning four giant pillars of water raising into the air, swirling before combining into one giant stream of water, Maria then lowers her armed gear to make the water crashes towards her targets behind her.

CRUEL†BATTLEDORE - Maria jump in the air, transforms her Armed Gear in a larger version of it, before smashing her targets with.

JUDGEMENT†STRIKE - Maria draws her Armed Gear while concentrate energy in the Gear of her left arm, she then rushes toward her targets, slashing them three times with the whip-form of her Armed Gear before taking a jump and releasing a beam with the Armed Gear of her left arm.

SPLENDID†ROSE - Maria grabs one of the rose at her head, then throws it toward her targets, rushes toward them, slashing them from every angles with her Armed Gear, leaving them in a storm of petals.

GLITTER†FLOOD - In her Ignited form, Maria combines her Armed Gear with the Gear of her left arm, before firing severals times toward the sky, she then punchs the ground, creating an wave of water that come crashing on the target after getting hit by the shots falling down on her.

ORACLE†SANCTUARY - Maria jump in front of her targets, then a white curtain appear, hidding what happen behind, before revealing Maria with her Armed Gear at hand with her target receiving the after effects of Maria's attacks, before being engulf in an tornado of flower petals.

ELEGANT†LUMIERE - Maria uses her Armed Gears to summons shorter versions linked to the orginals, before releasing them, each shooting beams at her target.

VOLLMOND†ANGRIFF -

TORTURE†DAGGER - Maria throws her Armed Gear at her target before rushing toward her, hold her Armed Gear once planted in the target before performing a final strike while retrieving it.

ALOOF†KNIGHT - Maria summons several replicas of her Armed Gear before combining them, creating a giant sword of energy that she make slowly descends onto her targets.

STREAM†FICKLE - Maria stabs the ground with her Armed Gear, causing spikes of ice to come out of the ground and rushing towards her targets, impaling them.

SACRED†FIRE - Maria ignited her Armed Gear and rush toward her targets, hitting them two time before give a final strike, displaying the sentence " Merry Xmas " before the targets explode afterwards.

RIDING†BLITZ - Maria, on her motorbike attack her targets with the whip-form of her Armed Gear, before jumping in air, to crash on her targets with the front of the bike.

Trivia

Both have a bright-spirited personality and have a severe temper in battles.

Both are the strongest from their team.

Both used the same quote after the LiNKER began to fail: "So my time limit only goes this far!?"

But unlike Kanade, Maria plays a shy girl role when she's near her brave younger sister Serena.

Again, unlike Kanade, Maria is not the strong and determined person she first appears to be — the cold and proud personality is just a mere shell to hide her past sorrow and weakness. This is the reason why her manifestation of Gungnir had a black cape that could deflect attacks.

Her lack of a cape when she used the Black Gungnir once again in GX Episode 4, is most likely a sign that she has grown much more confident due to her interactions with the others.

The song Apple sung by Maria and Serena was often sung in her town and they were taught this song by their grandmother when they were young.

Maria is the only character to have a character song sung completely in English (Dark Oblivion).

Maria is the second Symphogear user to own two relics, the first being Chris Yukine.

Also, both of them use alternative rock in their battle songs (although Maria uses it only in the middle of her battle song).

Maria's battle song genre is R&B and a bit of rock in the middle of the song.

The name of her SERE†NADE attack is most likely a play on both the musical term "serenade" and on the name of Serena, the previous user of the Airgetlám.

As seen in the GX Design Book, there is a seemingly unused attack called HEAVEN†GOSPEL, which is similar to SERE†NADE, save for the fact her armed gear is positioned outwards. It also has the ability to shoot copies of itself outwards.

Her backstory shares several similarities with Chris'. Both grew up with a loving family, who they then lost in a war (with Maria later losing Serena as well), becoming orphans; they suffered the consequences of that war (Chris was enslaved, and Maria became a vagrant); they were then "saved" by Finé (Maria was captured as part of the Receptor Children project, and Chris was directly captured as a pawn for Finé's plans); and then cooperated in antagonistic, destructive plans in hopes of saving the world (Chris cooperated with Finé to destroy all people in power to end war and conflict, and Maria was willing to destroy to save the world from the fall of the Moon under Finé's name), which both girls moved on from.

Maria and Chris are also both foreign — Chris is half-American, and Maria is European.

"Weak... That's right. I couldn't become strong, and then Elfnein made me realize... Even if I'm weak, I'll stay true to myself. That is strength. Elfnein can't fight, but she acted with courage, without regard for the danger, to bring us hope. Elfnein... I want you to stand there and listen. This song is my answer to your courage. Ignite Module! Drawn Blade!" - Season 3, Episode 7

"Each time I've gotten scared so far, I've clung to a lie... That's right. If being strong is being true to myself... I'll stay weak, and beat this curse regardless!" - Season 3, Episode 7

"That's right. Your room wasn't just left abandoned that way for ten years! It was messy, but there wasn't a speck of dust! He kept it that way, so he wouldn't lose the memories he had of you! No father who hated his daughter would do that! Just realize it, you stupid girl!" - Season 3, Episode 9